The Birthday of Queen Elizabeth of England

Slightly belated posting of this story, sorry, been busy !

Thursday the 16th of June

The Birthday of Queen Elizabeth of England

Because of the confluence of events today, I actually forgot for a while that I was going to the embassy ball, I also forgot that my bike had been stolen and that I had not transport.

Deciding that I did still want to go to the embassy ball I got ready and suddenly realised that I was going to have to arrive there by motodop, motorcycle taxi.

So, dressed up to the nines, suited’n’booted, dressed and pressed; I am sat on the back of a scruffy looking 20 year old Honda Daelim, with a slightly confused motodop weaving in and out of traffic along Mao Tse Tung Boulevard. As we approach the Intercontinental Hotel the police are blocking off traffic going both ways as several large black 4x4’s with tinted windows were pulling into the Hotel at the same time; yes the Khmer top brass were there; a couple of the deputy Prime Ministers (Cambodia has 5) as well as several Ministers and Under Secretaries.

My driver was somewhat unsure about driving through all this police and security, until I was able, in Khmer, to assure him that I was going to the same place as everyone else!

Once through the elaborate security procedures inside the hotel – a young girl taking coats – we enter the main Ballroom, around 200 people were there already. Circulating slowly around the room a waitress wandered past and handed me a glass of Champagne. Not yet seeing anyone that I knew I paused briefly by a large ice sculpture of a London Double Decker bus !?!

At that point the Under Secretary from the British Embassy took the stage, three feet to the right of me, hello everybody!

He explained that the British Ambassador, David Reader, could not be with us this evening as he had flown up to Siem Reap, the little boy that died had been Canadian and Canada is still part of the British Commonwealth like Australia. We were asked to observe a minutes silence before the rest of the speeches.

Fortunately the rest of the speeches only took about 10 minutes – other Khmer speeches I have attended over the last year have gone on for over an hour per person; culturally the more important you are the longer you speak for, thankfully this was not the case here.

At the close of the speeches, both the Khmer and British National anthems were played and sung by the 8 piece band I had not previously noticed. The singer was a Khmer woman, and I have to say, it was slightly strange hearing ‘god save our gracious queen’ sung in a Khmer accent !

Although the four violinists seemed excellent throughout the night, the piano player kept yawning and chatting to one of the cello players.

The formalities over, I took to mingling with the other guests.

In a country of near constant oppressive heat, where you usually have to dress for comfort, no so much for style, it was nice to see so many people make the effort to dress up. The diplomatic corps were there of course, with representatives from most of the city’s Embassies, turned out as neatly as if they were working in a London office. My fellow volunteers had also made a major effort. There was however a small contingent of the NGO crowd who it seems had decided to come dressed as unwashed smelly old hippies, although I suspect that this is their normal mode of dress… The Khmers were all dressed in ‘serious business attire’ and they seemed to view those in scruffy T-shirts and tattered, floral dresses with some bafflement, Khmers can be ultra conservative at times, and this sort of event with senior officials and a couple of members of the royal family present was, to them, a very serious affair.

Anyway, after a couple of hours socialising and catching up with friends of mine that normally work out in the provinces we decided to head over to the assorted buffet tables.

As my normal existence is mostly on rice (around 15 meals of rice a week, out of 21) I do tend to get slightly carried away when presented with food from home, doubly so if it has been prepared in a 5 star hotel restaurant and even more so if it is made from ingredients that had been airlifted in from the UK by diplomatic courier !

The hot buffet selection included:

Steak and Kidney pie, with a super-light and fluffy short crust pastry lid
Lincolnshire sausages
Rare fillet of Aberdeen Angus
Yorkshire puddings
Vegetable fritters
Mini jacket potatoes stuffed with spiced lamb
Fish with a dry curry rub crust
Chips and roast potatoes

For dessert we had a selection of; cheesecake, bread and butter pudding, fruit salad, ice cream.

On a separate buffet table they also had; Asian noodles, fried rice, et cetera. However, I decided to give the rice and noodles a miss for the evening :-)